


The Best Days

by Artemis (Citrine)



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: First Kiss, First Love, M/M, Schoolboys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citrine/pseuds/Artemis
Summary: Even the best days of our lives don't last forever, but it's what you discover along the way that you remember. Forever. Bunny’s head jerked up. “You know that I won’t. That’s why you chose me.” He had never realised it before, but now he was certain of it. “I’m like you.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short story set when Raffles and Bunny were at school together.
> 
> Not beta read so apologies for any obvious (but not to me!) errors.

He had no reason to be in Mapplethorpe’s study and no plausible excuse for the broken lock. The door hung open and the wood around the brass keyhole had splintered into spiked fragments. Mapplethorpe glared at it and then at him. His expression tore fear into Bunny's heart. He couldn't back away any further. The corner of the fireplace was already a vicious poke in his spine. Thankfully, it was May or the heat from the fire would have burnt the back of his legs.

"What the hell have you done?" Mapplethorpe grabbed his collar, almost lifting him off his feet, and shook him, "I asked you what you're doing in here.” He cuffed Bunny around the head and the blood rang in his ears. "Answer me!"

"N...nothing." Bunny blinked, trying not to cry. "I...nothing."

"You break into my study and call it nothing?"

"No, I didn't mean...it was an accident."

"You kick my ruddy door in and call it an accident?” Mapplethorpe shook him again. "Do you think that I'm a fool?" He looked down at the hapless fourteen-year-old in his grasp. "You're too spineless to think of it by yourself, you haven't got enough brains to piss in a pot, so who put you up to it?"

"I don't...don't remember." Bunny had bitten his lip and there was blood in his mouth. He didn't dare spit it out so he swallowed the sickly stuff.

"I expect it was a dare or something," said a bored voice from the ruined doorway. Raffles stepped over the threshold. "Was it a dare, Manders?"

Bunny nodded, too close to tears to speak.

"Then who was the blackguard who put him up to it?" demanded Mapplethorpe.

"You don't seriously expect him to tell us, do you? He may be a dull little pipsqueak, but he isn't one to go telling tales.” Raffles sat, without being asked, on the arm of an old leather chair. "I wouldn't sneak on a pal and you can't suppose that he will either."

Mapplethorpe mulled this over, before he shoved Bunny aside and grabbed a long willow cane from the umbrella stand. "He will when I've given him a damn good thrashing."

"He's my fag, if there's any thrashing to be done I'll do it."

"This is my study and I'm going to teach this young whippersnapper a lesson he won't forget in a hurry.” Mapplethorpe shoved Bunny towards the desk. "Bend over."

"I think not." Raffles was on his feet, positioned between Bunny and the battered desk. "As I've said, I can't permit it."

"I don't need your permission, Raffles. I've got every right to thrash the little blighter. Oh, come on, old chap, you know this place would go to pot if the upper sixth didn't keep the minions in order." Mapplethorpe poked Bunny in the back. "Get a move on or I’ll lay on half a dozen more strokes for insolence.”

Bunny looked at Raffles. "What shall I do?"

Raffles patted his shoulder. "Go back to my study and wait for me there."

"Stay where you are!" Mapplethorpe grabbed Bunny and spun him around. "Now get over there."

"Let him go."

Raffles’s quietly spoken, ice edged command made Mapplethorpe pause. He blinked at him in surprise. "What's the matter with you? I'm only going to give him the thrashing he deserves for breaking in here."

"He didn't break in. I did."

Bunny was horrified. Raffles’s shouldn’t have owned up, not when he’d been willing to take the blame and the punishment. “He didn’t-”

“You?" Mapplethorpe’s face was a picture of anger and disbelief. "You're the captain of the eleven for heaven's sake."

"And therefore, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion."

Mapplethorpe cried out and reeled back, clutching his nose. Scarlet blood dripped between his fingers and his eyes were narrow slits of tear-filled pain. “You bastard, you’ve broken my nose!”

Raffles laughed, a low unpleasant sound. He straightened his right cuff. “Leave him alone in future. Leave us alone and don’t even think about sneaking off to tell tales to the masters.”

Mapplethorpe shook his head and blood patterned the blotter on his desk. “I’m not a sneak, but I won’t forget this, Raffles.”

“Oh, I want you to remember.” Raffles stepped up to him so that they stood toe to toe. “There won’t be any need for further unpleasantness as long as you do. So why don’t you run along to matron and tell her how you tripped over and bashed your face on the desk. She won’t believe you, of course, but she’ll patch you up all the same with no questions asked.” He raised his voice, but kept his gaze fixed on Mapplethorpe.” What’s for supper tonight, Bunny?”

“What? Oh, I…I heard it was steak and kidney pudding.”

“There, you don’t want to miss that, do you?” Raffles handed Mapplethorpe his handkerchief. ’“Clean yourself up and enjoy your supper.” He backed towards the broken door. “Come on, Bunny.”

A moment later Bunny was hurrying along the corridor in Raffles’s wake, but he hardly saw the chessboard tiles and pitch-pine walls for the images jostling in his mind. There was Mapplethorpe’s last silence scowl of hatred and Raffles’s face when he’d struck out, cold and venomous beyond his seventeen years.

When they reached the curve of the staircase Raffles turned around with a grin and his hand outstretched. “Do you think I scared him enough, rabbit?”

“You scared me,” admitted Bunny.

Raffles chuckled and tapped him on the nose. “That’s because you’re a goose as well as a rabbit.” He grabbed Bunny’s hand and ushered him towards the stairs. “Up we go.”

Two winding flights of well-worn oak treads took them up to Raffles’s study where he bolted the door from the inside. “There, safe as houses, assuming that houses are safe.” He dropped gracefully into a chair next to the fireplace. “It isn’t broken, you know.”

“What isn’t?”

“Mapplethorpe’s nose, I didn’t hit him that hard. It’s just bloody and bruised. Nothing that a liberal application of ice won’t cure and I told him to go to matron so it won’t be my fault it he doesn’t get it sorted out.”

“I think I’d rather have a broken nose than go to see matron,” said Bunny. “She’s an ogre.”

“You could be right,” laughed Raffles. “Mapplethorpe’s one thing, but she frightens the life out of me.”

“You’re not afraid of anything," said Bunny. “I almost died when you told Mapplethorpe that you were the one who'd kicked his door in."

"I wasn't going to let you take all the blame." Raffles twisted around in the chair. He leant across to the fireplace and pulled a cloth wrapped cigarette case out of the coalscuttle. "I shall have to find somewhere else to hide this once they start lighting the fires again."

"That won't be for ages yet, they never give us any coal before November." By then the water in the ewers would freeze overnight and there would be ice on the insides of the windows. The Spartan conditions, a world away from the genteel comforts of home, had come as a shock to Bunny at first. As had the ever-present undercurrent of violence; there were schoolmasters whose strictness terrified the more timid boys, the prefects could be vicious and bullying was rife. In the context of all that Raffles’s punching Mapplethorpe on the nose didn’t seem so terrible and he had done it to save him from a flogging. It was all rather wonderful of him really. “Thank you for rescuing me.” He knew that he was blushing and that made him even more self-conscious.

“You’re welcome, old boy.” Raffles lit his illicit cigarette with a Lucifer match. “Grab a cushion and sit down.”

There were overstuffed horsehair cushions in the room as well as ornaments on the shelves and paintings on the walls. The sixth formers were allowed such luxuries if they brought them from home or purchased them in town. Bunny selected his favourite wine velvet cushion and dropped it onto the hearthrug next to Raffles’s armchair. He settled himself on it with legs crossed and his back against the chair. “At least I can sit down,” he said with a little laugh. He knew from experience how painful a caning could be.

Raffles tipped his head back and sent a long curl of smoke drifting towards the ceiling. “I can’t protect you from the masters, but I meant what I said to Mapplethorpe, the sixth can jolly well leave you alone. If there’s any flogging to be done then I’ll do it, but I won’t.” He grinned. “Unless you want me to of course.”

Bunny went scarlet. “I... I don’t think...” He struggled with concepts he half understood from the lewd talk in the common room. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“Good, I’ve no time for all that bally nonsense either. It’s a useful handle to have on a chap at a pinch mind, especially when he’s an out and out rotter, but it wouldn’t do for us.”

“No, absolutely not.” Bunny liked it when Raffles talked about ‘us’. It made him feel all warm and bubbly inside. “This is much nicer.”

“You’re a hopeless case.” Raffles nudged his shoulder. “Here, have a drag on this.”

Bunny took the cigarette with some misgivings. He didn’t want to drop it on the rug or to start coughing the way he’d done the first time he smoked. “Thanks.” He couldn’t emulate Raffles’s lazy style, but the billow of smoke into his lungs was a pleasant surprise. “This is nice too.”

“It’s a Sullivan. I got them in town.”

“Will you take me with you to town one day?” Bunny craned his neck so that he could see Raffles’s face. “Not at night when you need me to keep watch for you, during in the day, maybe we could go one Sunday after chapel.”

“Town’s as dead as a doornail on Sundays. There isn’t a cup of tea or a sticky bun to be had for love nor money.” Raffles sat forward. “I tell you what, I’ll forge a letter giving you permission to leave the school grounds. Mapplethorpe’s a prefect so I’ll put his signature on it. Then you can come and meet me in town on Saturday afternoon.”

“Do you mean this Saturday?”

“Why not? You haven’t got any other plans, have you?”

“No, of course not.” Bunny had promised to help Harrison in the lower fourth write his letter home. The poor chap struggled with his reading and writing, much to the amusement of his classmates, and he’d been so grateful for his offer.

“That’s settled then.” Raffles reclaimed his cigarette and flopped back in the chair.

Bunny hoped that Harrison wouldn’t blub and stutter when he told him, maybe they could write his letter after Greek prep on Friday evening. That solution to his dilemma satisfied his conscience. “Good, I’d like that.” He shifted over so that his head rested against Raffles’s knee. When he wasn’t rebuffed, he relaxed with a little sigh of contentment.

Faint sounds floated up from the quadrangle, boys’ voices, rippling with laughter, and the trill of a blackbird in the tall oaks that surrounded the playing fields. Raffles’s tiny study in the tower was warm, mellowed by the May sun into a cavern of gold where bright specks of dust floated on the lazy air. It was almost summer and there was the rub. “The chaps have all started to talk about the hols.”

“I expect that you’ll be glad to get back to your people.”

“I suppose so.” Bunny had been miserable and homesick all through the first term, until Raffles had chosen him to be his fag and everything had changed. “I’ll miss you though,” he blurted.

“Nonsense, once you get home you’ll be too busy having a topping time to spare a thought for me.”

Bunny turned towards him. “That’s not true. I’ll think about you all the time.” He realised that he was saying too much, but desperation made him reckless. “Will you write to me? Or perhaps you could even come to stay, I could send a letter to my papa asking him to write to your people for permission.”

“No, don’t do that.” Raffles threw the cigarette stub into the grate.

“But it might be our only chance, next year you’ll be off to university and I’ll be stuck here all alone.” Bunny swallowed the tears that threatened to make an ass of him and rubbed his sleeve across his eyes. “Please…”

“Stop blubbing.” Raffles dragged his chin up with iron fingers. “If you’re going to survive in school after I’ve gone you can’t be a cry-baby.”

“I’m not,” said Bunny through his snuffles. “I’ve got something in my eye.”

“As long as that’s all it is.” Raffles winked at him before his face took on a serious cast again. “You need to find a niche for yourself, cultivate a talent that the school will respect. Sport’s the very thing, of course.”

“I’m hopeless at cricket and worse at footer. Actually there isn’t much that I am any good at.”

“You’ve a way with a pen though,” said Raffles after a moment’s reflection. “I’ve fagged you to do my verses before now and you’ve had a couple of pieces in the school mag, so why not see if you can make something of it? Get some more stuff in the mag. You could write up my matches and scribble a creepy tale or two, everyone likes those.”

“I’d like that, but it’s not the same as being an athlete, is it?”

“We can’t all be good at everything, so see what you can do with the mag.”

“All right, I will.” Bunny moistened his lips. “You’ll think I’m silly, but I’ve sometimes fancied that I might make a name for myself as a writer one day.”

“It’s a deuce difficult thing to accomplish, but why not? I don’t know how some of these tedious fellows get into print, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t make a go of it if you’ve got the pluck and the determination.”

For an instant Bunny’s head was filled with Dickens style fame, then he sighed. “I don’t know if I’ve got the talent, but I’d like to try.”

“That’s settled then. You’ll have to send me a signed copy of your first novel.”

“I won’t know where to send it, not unless you write to me, but you won’t, you’ll forget all about me once you go up to university.”

Raffles sighed. “It’s far better for you if I do, I’m a rogue, Bunny, and I’ll lead you into all sorts of bad ways.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then you should. You must.”

“Well, I don’t,” insisted Bunny. He clutched Raffles’s hand. “You know that I’d do anything for you, anything in the world.”

“Anything, Bunny? If you weren’t such an innocent little cuss or an ignorant one depending on one’s point of view I might just take you up on that offer.” Raffles pulled his hand away. “So you had been not go throwing temptation in my path, as I said a moment ago I’m a rogue, but you - you’re something else, my dear boy.”

“What if I want you to be tempted? Lots of the boys have…special friends and I’d like it if you were mine, truly I would, and I’m not that innocent or ignorant or anything. I’m not!” Bunny protested because Raffles’s cynical smile had broadened into a grin. “Don’t you dare laugh at me, you rotter.”

“I’m not, really I’m not.” Raffles made a determined effort to suppress his amusement. “Perhaps your naivety is part of your charm, but be careful not to let other fellows exploit it once I’ve gone off to varsity. If they think that you’re wretched over me some of them will be quick enough to offer you a shoulder to cry on and then-”

“I will be wretched,” Bunny interrupted. He didn’t care what other boys might or might not do, Raffles was the only one who mattered to him. “More than wretched.”

“That will pass.” Raffles cupped his hands around Bunny’s face. “All this will pass and in a year or two when you find yourself hankering after a pretty girl it will seem like nothing, just ash and smoke in the wind.”

“I never know what to say to girls.” Bunny grappled with conflicting, frightening, emotions. He was well aware of the warmth of Raffles’s hands and the wild rhythm of his own heart. “I’m not even sure that I like them very much.” He lowered his head as if to hide his shame in Raffles’s hands. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be…right,” he mumbled.

“I hope that you are. It’s a hard life for those of us who aren’t right.” Raffles was silent for a moment and when he spoke again it was with false cheerfulness. “All this talk about not being right is probably a load of hogwash. There’s no reason for you to think that you won’t be like the vast majority of men.”

Bunny’s head jerked up. “You know that I won’t. That’s why you chose me.” He had never realised it before, but now he was certain of it. “I’m like you.”

“Don’t be.” Raffles leant down until his forehead rested on Bunny’s. “Don’t,” he whispered. “It’ll bring you nothing but pain.”

Bunny’s eyes filled with tears. He hated to hear Raffles sound so unhappy and his underlying, unspoken fear was infectious. “I’m sorry,” he murmured without any real idea why he was apologising. He kissed Raffles’s damp cheek. “I…I love-”

“Shush.” Raffles silenced him with the first real kiss of his life.

Bunny would relive that moment a thousand times over the years that followed. He would remember how strange and how wonderful the hot pressure on his mouth felt; how he had clung to Raffles, unsure what to do, until baser fiery feelings had consumed him. 

He would also remember how Raffles had drawn back and gently sent him away. And how he had to wait a decade for another such kiss from his beloved. 


End file.
